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LECTURE 

ON THE 

INFANT SCHOOL 
SYSTEM OF EDUCATION, 

AND THE EXTENT 



TO WHICH IT MAY BE ADVANTAGEOUSLY APPLIED . 



PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

DELIVERED 

IN THE REPRESENTATIVES' HALL, BOSTON, 

AUGUST 21, 1830, 

BEFORE THE CONVENTION 

WHICH FORBJED THE 

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION. 



BY WILLIAM RUSSELL. 



BOSTON; 
MILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE AND WILKINS. 



1830. 



V 









DISTRICT OF MASSACHUt . W 

ri: , 
Be it remembered, That on the th 
1830, in the fiftyfifth year of the Indepent 
America, Hilliard, Gray, Little and Wilkii 
posited in this Office the Title of a Book, 
as Proprietors in the words following, to wu 

' The Introductory Discourse and Lectures, delivered 
the Convention of Teachers and other Friends of Edu 
to form the American Institute of Instruction, August, 
under the Direction of the Board of Censors.' 

In Conformity to the Act of the Congress of the Uni 
' An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing 
Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of i 
the times therein mentioned : ' and also to an Act en' 
plenientary to an Act, entitled, au Act for tlxeenrjiurr 
by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books to 
pnetors of such copies during the times therein ment' 
the benefits tliereof to the arts of designing, engrav 
torical and other prints.' 

JOHN W. DAVIS, Clerk of the Disti 



;ii--l. 1 



By TrtJ-iiarar 



LECTURE. 






.'Si-.'i 



K 



INFANT SCHOOL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION, 



AND THE EXTENT 



TO WHICH IT MAY BE ADVANTAGEOUSLY APPLIED 



. PRIMARY SCHOOLS, 



The establishment of schools adapted to the coiuhiiou and 
capacities of iiifaiicy, is aa iaipoitaut event, whether regarded 
as the connneiiceuient of a new era in the exertions of plii- 
lanthrophy and charity, or the source of extensive improve- 
ment in elementary education. These schools are the held of 
a most interesting experiment in morals. Tlie question is here 
to be answered, whether much of human evil may be avoided 
or averted, rather than remedied; whether, in the treatment 
of the mind, as w^ell as of the body, a preventive may be sub- 
stituted fur a curative regimen. The momentous results con- 
nected with this new order of things, are developing in grad u- 
al but sure and encouraging succession. The physical frame 
of man is beginning to receive a portion of that care which is 
due to it, as a production of creative wisdom ; the human heart 
begins to be regarded as the native soil of virtue, ^vhich early 
culture is to keep free from encroaching weeds; and the intel- 
lect begins to be treated as a self-impelling power, which edu- 
cation is to aid, rather than to check.^ 
1 



A4 



4 MR Russell's lecture. 

The general effect of methods founded on such views of ed- 
ucation can, as yet, be imagined only. But even the slight 
progress already made, affords a wide scope to just expecuition. 
The rational education of infancy seems destined to eflect 
vast, though silent and unostentatious, clianges on the condi- 
tion of man. His physical strength and activity, his intellec- 
tual and moral tendencies, may, by this means, be brought 
under the influence of such modes and habits of action as shall 
renovate his whole character; substituting intelligent, sponta- 
neous, and habitual virtue, with its attendant happiness, for the 
struggle of self-conquest, or the pain of conscious failure, — the 
two extremes between which the human heart has hitherto 
vibrated, under the influence of arbitrary education. No 
doubt, at least, remains, that the most successful as well as the 
most natural method of removing many of the evils of social 
life, is, to impart active habits, and an elevated character, to 
the minds of the poor, and to do this effectually and exten- 
sively, by means of imiversal early education. 

As httle doubt seems to remain, tlmt the modes of elementa- 
ry instruction, prevailing previous? to the introduction of infant 
schools, were, in general, defective and inadequate ; that, under 
their influence, the health of the body, and the natural action 
of the mind, were neglected ; the affections left uncultivated oi 
ill-regulated ; the intellect forced into arbitrary channels, and 
accustomed to mechanical influences and morbid habits. 

It is unnecessary to enter at present into a particular state 
ment of the conunon defects of elementary education, previous 
to the introduction of the methods adopted in infant schools 
They may be briefly sunnned up in the great neglect of phys 
ical acconnnodation, of comfort, and of health ; in the smal 
s\y.e, defective ventilation, inconvenient arrangement, am 
gloomy aspect of most school-rooms ; their uncomfortabJ 
seats ; the long continued and painful sedentary attitude of th 
little pupils ; the entire absence of appropriate visible object 
addressed to the active feelings and restless imagination ■ 
childhood ; the want of cheering and invigorating exercis< 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 5 

a mechanical rouline of application, producing lillle efl'ect but 
on the memory, and leavijig the understanding and the imag- 
ination nearly inactive ; lessons presented, in general, in the 
form of compulsory tasks ; modes of discipline retrospective 
rather than anticipative, repulsive, therefore, and arbitrary, not 
founded on reason and affection, and inlluencing the imagina- 
tion only through the medium of fear or restraint ; no social 
intercourse between the pupils permitted ; and consequently 
the natural opportunities for influencing feeling and character 
precluded. 

A well-regulated infant school furnishes a happy contrast to 
these defects : it exhibits a spacious, aiiy, cheerful, and comfort- 
able apartment, prepared expressly for every good influence on 
the infant being ; a frequent change of attitude and of employ- 
ment ; the presence of pictures and other objects calculated to 
inspire the mind with activity and dehght, or to ditluse tran- 
quillity and tenderness of feeling ; mental employments inter- 
spersed with appropriate juvenile exercise, or judicious intervals 
of entire rest ; lessons adapted to the capacities and desires of in- 
fancy ; mental exertion rendered agreeable and voluntary ; dis- 
cipline consisting chiefly of rational and affectionate measures 
addressed to sympathy and moral feeling, and, as far as prac- 
ticable, to reason, and turning upon the incidents arising from 
the pupils' intercourse with each other. Such are the promi- 
nent features of the system adopted in infant schools, and 
which, as might reasonably have been anticipated, at a time 
of unusual thought and inquiry on the subject of education, 
have commended themselves to the minds of all who have 
had opportunity to observe them, — which have already, to some 
extent, been introduced in primary and other elementary 
schools, and which have become a subject of peculiar interest 
to all who arc, in any way, concerned in early education. 

Before attempting to speak more particularly of the extent to 
which these improvements in instruction may be introduced in 
primary schools in this country, it will be necessaiy to advert 



b MR RUSSELL S LECTURE. 

to the circumstances in which the infant schools originated, 
and under which they still exist, in England. There, they 
were introduced as a charity, designed for the benefit of the poor. 
Kxpcrience soon suggested, in some instances, tlie advantage 
of allowing them, in part, at least, to depend on a slight con- 
tribution from the parents of the children who are taught in 
them. But they continue, in general, like some of those es- 
tablished in cities in this count ly, to present themselves as in- 
stitutions of benevolence, patronized by the bounty of the rich- 
er classes of society, rather than supported by tlie voluntary 
exertions of the poor themselves, or by the choice of parents in 
better circumstances, who prefer them to other schools, or to 
the common course of domestic education. 

Another circumstance deserving consideration towards a 
proper estimation of infant schools, and the methods of in- 
struction adopted in them, is the fact, that these schools were 
originally established for the benefit of a class of society among 
whom the advantages of any form of education had scarcely 
been felt, — for parents whose circumstances were, in general, 
such, that they felt it necessary to have their children put, as 
early as possible, into the way of earning something towards 
the support of their families. People in such a condition 
naturally regard even the slightest accjuisition in education, 
as a new and unexpected benefit, and are not generally solici- 
tous about the attainments made by their children at an ele- 
mentary school, as introductory to education at schools of a 
hieher order. But even in those cases in which infant schools 
are expressly intended as a prej)aratory step to the national 
schools of England, (corresponding in sonae respects to the pri- 
mary and common schools of New England,) tiie initiation 
required at the infant schools is limited by the narrowness of 
education at these higher schools themselves ; in few or none 
of which the branches of instruclion, or the extent to which 
they are carried, are ecjual to those of the New England com- 
mon schools, when conducted by a teacher of enterprise and 
intelligence. 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 7 

The attempt, theiefoiej to transfer the infant school system 
as it is called, to the fust stages of instruction in this country, 
would seein to require a consideration of the difference of the 
state of education here, and in England. The children of every 
parent in New England, may, by the auspicious arrangement 
of the system of public schools, receive the benefit of instruc- 
tion, as soon as they are old enough to walk to the school- 
house. What is here needed, then, in the way of improve- 
ment, is not the introduction of a new system, but the better 
adaptation of that which already exists, to the education of the 
youngest classes of scholars. All the advantages of the meth- 
ods of instruction in infant schools, would be attained by adopt- 
ing the spirit of these methods, in primary education. Ev- 
ery village school in New England, may, during the summer, 
if not the winter months, become an infant school, as far as 
such a change is desirable. 

That the result, in this case, would be highly advantageous, 
is a point which needs no proof to those who have ever visited 
an iofant school, and observed the intelligence, the cheerful- 
ness, and the infantine innocence and goodness which they 
cherish, even when taught in a very imperfect and mechan- 
ical way. 

The extent to which the infant school system may be 
apphed to all primary schools, should be measured, not by the 
extent to which its routine may be borrowed or copied. The 
mechanism of the infant school system is, indeed, excellent in 
many respects. Its whole aspect is happy and inspLing, and 
favors the expansion of the intellect and the heart, while it 
promotes a healthful vigor of body. But a literal copy of its 
minutest details, is neither practicable nor expedient. It is of 
the utmost consequence, in this case, to look beyond the exter- 
nal routine to the internal principle. If we secure the latter, 
we shall not lose the benefit of the former, although we may- 
modify it by new circumstances. Excellent as is the spirit 
which pervades the general system of the infant schools, there 



8 MR Russell's lecture. 

are some points in which their details of instruction admit of 
much imjjrovenicntj — some in which they are radically defective, 
or, at all events, unsuitable for the purposes of early education 
in New England, and, perhaps, in other parts of this country. 

The objectionable points now alluded to, are chictiy com- 
jnehended in the injurious habit of learning by rote. This 
defect in the prevaihng modes of in.struction at infant schools, 
pervades most of the lessons, from the sublime topics of re- 
ligion, or the sciences of geometry and astronomy, to the tables 
of arithmetic. Proof of this point may be found in the unin- 
teUigible matters of religious tiicory, and the obvious peculiari- 
ties of faith, which form a large portion of the catechetical in- 
struction of infant schools, — in the fact that the lessons in geom- 
etry and astronomy are but a course of recitations in nomencla- 
ture, aided by ocular or tangible illustrations, while the tables 
in arithmetic are made a mere mechanical succession of sounds, 
dependent on an arbitrary effort of memory. By such meth- 
ods of instruction children may be made to appear intelligent 
in subjects naturally far beyond their grasp ; but the result is 
mere outward show. The intellect is still dormant ; it must 
be waked, if at all, by very different expedients. 

liCaving these points, which concern the understanding and 
the heart, we shall find, if we proceed to the departments of 
imagination and taste, a want, not only of felicity, but of truth 
and correctness, in the expedients adopted for the cultivation 
of this part of the intellectual constitution. Poetry, music, 
and pictures, might exert a fine influence on the unfolding 
mind of infancy, were they appropriately employed. But used 
as, in general, they now are, their effect is rather to degrade and 
peryert. than to elevate the associations of the infant mind. 

The hymns prescribed as infant school exercises, are, with 
a few exceptions, a succession of verses which possess none of 
the attributes of {)oetry, and often fall into absolute doggerel. 
It is exceedingly diflicult, no doubt, to find good poetry for 
children and infancy ; hut this is no reason for using that which 
is bad ; — better that imagination should remain uncultivated, 
than become degraded or perverted. 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. V 

The music at infant schools is seldom what it should 
be, — perfectly simple and perfectly correct. The ear of in- 
fancy should be attuned to the purest and best forms of mu- 
sic, or should be left uninfluenced. The high polish of con- 
summate skill in this branch of art, is not necessary, it is true, 
in leading the voices of infants. But an early fault of taste 
and habit, caught from bad example, is a misfortune for life ; 
since it entails corruption on all the mental associations con- 
nected with music* 

Of the drawings or engravings in common use at infant 
schools it is impossible to speak with truth, unless in terms 
of strong reprehension. The subjects are very often badly 
chosen, presenting to the eye of infancy the exhibition, some- 
times, of the most degrading and horrid crimes, instead of such 
objects as should shed a serene and happy influence on the 
heart. Pictures deUneating scenes in which infants cannot 
naturally take any interest, or which they cannot compre- 
hend, are also in very common use. But an objection more gen- 
eral exists in the gross inaccuracy of the forms, and the inappro- 
priate colors, in most pictures prepared for children. Here is 
an injury not barely to taste, but actually to the power of 
perception, — to truth and accuracy in the habits of the mind. 
Much improvement, it is true, has taken place, within a few 
years, in this branch of art. But children's picture books still 
abound in the most striking errors of delineation, and tend gen- 
erally to hold back or mislead the mental powers, rather than 
to incite or assist them. 

The distinguishing points of excellence in the infant school 
system, are found in the general plan of education on which 

* Specimens of what music adapted to children should be, were given 
by a class of children, during the lecture of Mr Woodbridge. No person 
who had the happiness of hearing those simple and touching strains, can 
doubt in regard to the great influence of music on the juvenile mind, and 
the possibility of its being early and scientifically taught, or forbear to wish 
that such exercises may be speedily and extensively introduced in all 
schools for young children. 



10 MR RUSSELL'a LECTURE. 

it is based, rather than its execution in detail : they consist, 
chiefly, in the blending of physical and moral culture with the 
exercise of intellect, and the embodying of all in simple and 
attractive forms, addressed to the imagina. on. The infant 
school system is, in these respects, an immense improvement 
in modes of education, which every friend to the best interests 
of man must wish to see transferred to all elementary schools. 

To appreciate rightly the improvement effected by the intro- 
duction of this system, we must contrast its operations with 
those of the common modes of elementary instruction. Look- 
ing into an infant school, we observe the children employed 
in healthful and pleasant recreation, or enjoying a temporary 
repose ; listening to a story inculcating the virtues of childhood ; 
admiring a picture, or joining in a song ; yielding a cheerful 
obedience to affectionate management ; asking the artless ques- 
tions which are prompted by the natural curiosity of infancy, 
or listening, with deep interest and attention, to their instruc- 
ter's answers. 

Let us turn to inspect, for a moment, a primary school, 
taught in the common way, — and we see usually a number of 
little sufferers, confined to one uncomfortable posture, for hours 
in succession ; enduring an irksome restraint, as the condition 
of an escape from penalties ; conning mechanically a memory 
lesson which they do not understand, or reciting it as mechan- 
ically ; controlled in every look and action by the aspect of 
authority ; — the whole nature of the httle beings put under a 
discipline of repression and restraint. 

To supersede this repulsive system by the other, would cer- 
tainly be a most desirable step in the progress of human im- 
provement. This result, however, is not to be attained by 
merely exchanging one routine for another, but by entering 
into the spirit of rational, affectionate, and congenial methods 
of early culture. 

To secure the benefits of the improved system, teachers and 
others who can exert an influence on primary education, 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 11 

should not look merely to a change of books or the introduc- 
tion of apparatus, but to a general reformation of methods of 
education. Attention should, in the first place, be given to the 
influence of healUi, activity^ and happiness, on the devel- 
opement of the infant powers. 

The situation^ the size, and the arrangement of the 
school-house, should be the first objects on w hich to commence 
improvement. These should be divested of every hinderance 
to health, and, by every possible means, rendered conducive 
to happiness. The school-room, without and within, should 
favor cheerfulness and freedom, and be propitious to intellec- 
tual association. 

Teachers cannot perhaps succeed in changing the situation 
of school-houses, so as to have them placed in spots, adapted, 
by retirement, shade or shelter, to a good influence, moral and 
intellectual, as well as physical. But they might sometimes 
succeed in obtaining, for the use of their little charge, permis- 
sion to cultivate an adjoining piece of ground, as a happy 
opportunity for inculcating a practical lesson on the fruits of 
industry, and of leading the young mind to watch the growth 
and trace the forms of plants, or to observe the frame and 
habits of insects. Imagination and taste might here be brought 
under the best of influences. 

But circumstances may render it impossible to attain the 
aid of such advantages in education. The teacher should 
therefore devote an assiduous attention to the internal ar- 
rangement of the school-room ; the adaptation of its furniture 
to convenience and comfort ; the decoration of the walls with 
objects calculated to exert a useful and happy influence on the 
mind, — especially, in the proper season, with shrubs and flowers, 
and other productions of nature, which necessarily excel pic- 
tures, and aU forms of imitation, as the original does the copy. 
Pictures, however, if well executed and well chosen, are 
among the best means of awakening and interesting the mind 
of infancy ; and a few books of engravings, prepared for the 
use of infant and primary schools, with or even without, the 



12 MR Russell's lecture. 

addition of appropriate letterpress, would be a very interesting 
and useful source of thought and conversation between teach- 
ers and children. A book of this description may be made by 
every teacher for his own use, by procuring a number of good 
cuts or drawings, and forming them into a volume, by insert- 
ing them between the leaves of a blank book of suitable size, — 
cutting out every other blank leaf, and pasting the picture on 
the next. This expedient has been found very serviceable 
for interesting and employing children too young to be able to 
read. 

A ])lai/-ffround, enclosed sufficiently for the safety of very 
young children, and provided to some extent with playthings 
of such a kind, and of such size and form, as would conduce to 
healthful exercise, and furnish agreeable and perhaps instruc- 
tive employment, would be a valuable aid to early education. 
Health, cheerfulness, and tranquillity, are not merely im- 
portant things in themselves, as means of immediate happi- 
ness — they are indispensable in infancy and childhood to the 
natural moral action of the feelings, and the successful devcl- 
opement of intellect. Moral energy and self-control may well 
supersede such aids with the adult. But the dependent 
condition of infancy cannot dispense with them. They are, in 
fact, its birthright ; in a natural form of life, it is surrounded 
with them in abundance ; and, in depriving it of these, we 
thwart the nature of the infant being more seriously, perhaps, 
than we should by withholding food and rest, or by perverting 
the foi nis in which these means of life are administered. 

It should never be forgotten, that, in the education of infan- 
cy, and especially as conducted in cities, a great violence is 
generally done to the constitution and character of man. We 
take the being who is born to inherit the free air and the 
spacious earth, with all their wide variety of forms and colors, 
of motion, change, and life, — a theatre of grandeur, and beau- 
ty, and delight ; we take this being, and shut him up from 
the healthful and fragrant atmosphere, and the inspiring light ; 
we cut off his communication with the varied face of the earth, 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 13 

with the great worlds of vegetable and animal life, and all the 
pure and natural pleasures of his own sensations, with the va- 
rying but ever happy thoughts to which these give rise ; and 
we confine him to a small and perhaps disagreeable room, 
place him on an uncomfortable bench, put a book in his hand, 
and compel him to look on it, and, as far as we can, chain his 
mind to its mechanical influence. 

To the careless eye of him who is content with the present 
condition and past attainments of man, and whose indolence or 
timidity of nature would lead him to submit to all the load of 
imperfection which he has himself inherited, or whose own 
inactivity of mind leads him to regard with a skeptic eye every 
attempt to render education the means of a general improve- 
ment of the intellectual and moral condition of society, — to 
such a mind the accumulation of evils under which infancy 
and childhood have been left to labor, may seem a picture of 
fancy. But to the eye of the mother and the teacher, whose 
office it is to watch the progress, and observe the impediments 
of the young mind, these hinderances appear in their true light. 
It is to these close observers only, that truth, in this form of it, 
can appear. And the infant school system is based on the ob- 
servation and experience of mothers and elementary teachers, 
when it prescribes, for infant education, the use of a large, airy, 
cheerful room, and enjoins a frequent change of attitude, with 
occasional alternations of active play and of rest, or even of 
sleep. 

The modes of city life leave very little in the power of 
the teacher, in regard to the happy influence of nature on the 
young mind. But the obligation of teachers is, in such cir- 
cumstances, only rendered stronger, to use every exertion 
which may counteract the evils of confinement and discomfort, 
and to take all possible measures for cherishing in the mind 
those propitious states of feeling, which education so limited 
and embarrassed is apt to repress. A school-room in a city or 
a large town, may be necessarily excluded from a free access 
of air and light. The attentive teacher will, on this account, 



14 MR Russell's lecture. 

double liis efibrts to have the internal arrangement and appear- 
ance of the room made convenient and comfortable ; he will 
endeavour to have the children seated at as great a distance 
as possible from each other, and their seats contrived with ex- 
press regard to free and varied postures of body ; lie will re- 
serve, if possible, a clear space sufliciently large for simultane- 
ous exercise in walking, running, and the other forms of mo- 
tion natural to early chiltlhood, and conducive to mental activ- 
ity and enjoyment ; he will be strictly watchful of ventilation, 
both in summer and in m inter, so as to preserve a moderate 
and healthful atmosplieie, in an apartment in which so large 
a part of every day is spent by young children ; he will grati- 
fy and cheer the mind, through the medium of the eye, by 
agreeable and instructive pictures and other objects, suspended 
on the walls, since every aid to cheerfulness is a favorable im- 
pulse to the habits of mind and of body. 

Primary schools in the country are exempted from the un- 
favorable inlluences of restricted space and unwholesome at- 
mosphere. But care should be taken, in such circumstances, 
to keep pace, in interior arrangements, with the happy inllu- 
ences existing without. There is danger of the child feeling 
that all his pleasures lie out of tlie school-room, and that here 
alone he is to be confined and restrained, or surrounded by 
dulness and monotony. Teachers in the country should 
make liberal use of the advantages which they enjoy, for at- 
tracting the attention and impressing the imagination of child- 
hood, by the productions of nature. These only can fully 
impart that silent instruction, and that innocent delight, which, 
although they cannot be measured by definite and tangible 
marks, form the most natural and the most eflectual devel- 
opement of mind, Avhether we regard its intellectual or its mo- 
ral habits. 

Teachers of primary schools ought, in a word, to attend to, 
and, as far as possible, regulate, everything that may influence 
early habit ; — remembering that their peculiar duties render 
thenij next to mothers, responsible for the v/elfare of man ; 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 15 

and that if there is any object for which no sacrifice of time 
and of exertion is too great, it is tlie early direction of the affec- 
tions, the intellect, and the health of human beings. Teachers 
who are disposed to take these matters on trust, and quietly to 
follow in the track of custom, are unfit for the office they have 
assumed, and would do well to relinquish it, in favor of an 
employment less responsible in its nature. 

The school-house or room having received its due share of 
attention, as a tacit but powerful influence on the mind and 
corporeal frame of infancy, the next step, in the order of im- 
portance, is to reform the moral management of the school, 
— to adopt a preventive, instead of a retrospective care of the 
mind ; to act upon the individual by means of general sym- 
pathy ; to break loose from the plan of observing and repress- 
ing single faults, for the moment, and to adopt a liberal and 
generous management, which appeals to affection and con- 
science, identifying itself with imagination and with character ; 
moulding the disposition by the genial and voluntary influence 
of individual intellect ; avoiding in every word, and tone, and 
look, a single expression which may indicate the presupposing 
of evil intention, in infantine 'faults', as they are called, but, on 
the contrary, rendering the teacher's measures an appeal to 
the heart, and a model to the imagination ; and throwing, by 
every means, a cheerful aspect on whatever comes under the 
name of duty. In all these respects,the infant school system 
forms a striking contrast to the literal and mechanical modes 
of discipline, prevailing in elementary schools taught in the or- 
dinary way. 

The great moral defect in primary schools, is, that in thera 
the management of childhood is regulated by a few arbitrary 
rules, and a corresponding scheme of various stages of punish- 
ment. By this narrow method, the child whose constitution 
inclines him to stillness of body, and negative action of mind 
is invested with a false merit ; while the active, the buoyant, 
and the enterprising, carry with them, into the school-room, 
2 



16 MR RUSSELL'3 lecture. 

a load of nalivc guilt, which soon brings down upon its pos- 
sessors the punishment which they are told it deserves. 

A discipline characterised chielly by a series of restraints, 
represses the action of the mind, takes away its freedom, and 
the whole merit and conscious pleasure of voluntary virtue. 
A discipline consisting principally of inlliclion, presents to the 
young mind the mean animal motive of present pain, and brings 
forth all the lower attributes of character, — fear, duplicity, and 
cunning. 

The distinguishing excellence of the infant school method, 
is, that it addresses itself to the heart, and presents to the child 
the same class of motives that are employed by maternal love: 
it cheers and leads onward the young mind, presupposing that 
infant morality will always be correct, if not turned from its 
natural course. To create a pure and healthful conscience, 
which may serve as a sure guide and protecting guardian in 
later years, is one great aim of this happy mode of manage- 
ment. The teacher, therefore, docs not rest satisfied with 
prescribing rules and penalties, but endeavours to enter into 
the inmost feelings of the infant being, and preserve them in 
their original freshness and force. 

The common system of general rules and prohibitions, is 
faulty as a means of early culture ; since it ever must fail of 
touching the springs of individual character. By its generality 
alone, not to speak of other defects, it merges the individual 
in the mass, and takes away much of personal responsibility 
and individual character, which are the only sure foundation 
of virtue. Its utmost limit of success is a negative compliance 
with a principle of convenience ; and its prohibitory character, 
tending to repress inquiry and activity, renders it, for the most 
part, utterly ineffectual as a means of improvement to the 
mind. 

The method of the infant schools appeals, on the contrary, 
to thought and feeling in the individual breast ; it implants 
and cherishes those principles of rational and affectionate obe- 
dience ; it cultivates those feelings of cheerfulness or of tranquil- 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 17 

lity, from the absence of which rules and penallies become 
necessary : it is thus enabled to dispense with these formal and 
mechanical aids, and, rising to a higher class of mental motives, 
exerts a more propitious influence. It fastens on the individ- 
ual mind by methods resembling those of judicious maternal 
management, which are always addressed to tlie aflections or 
to reason, and operate not as laws but as jirinciples. 

An infant school, when rightly conducted, is made to resem- 
ble a family ; the teacher taking, for a time, the place of the 
parent. In a word, the mind and character of the teacher are 
brought into direct contact with those of the children ; and the 
management of the school depends not on a preestablished 
system of rules or routine of exercises, but on the immediate 
action of a presiding mind. No dependence is placed on formal- 
ities of any sort. The teacher endeavours rather to a\'oid 
these, and trusts to hi^4fiflucRce over xeason and aflection. 
Instead of repressing the mind by a rule, or restraining it by 
a penalty, he endeavours to lift it up to intelligent views of or- 
der and duty, and to inspire it with the conscious pleasure of 
rectitude and self-control. To this end, he reasons and per- 
suades ; he appeals to sympathy ; he calls in the aid of imagi- 
nation. If the quickness of infantile emotion has, for a mo- 
ment, overthrown reason, he calmly and gently endeavours to 
raise it again. If waywardness arises, the little olfonder is 
never made to feel the discipline of systematic resentment : he 
is directed to a new train of thought, by means of new objects ; 
he is placed amidst a cheerful group of his associates, and is 
allowed to take part in their employments ; he is presented 
with a picture calculated to raise an agreeable or tranquil slate 
of feeling ; or is told an appropriate and interesting story, which 
wins him back from his temporary mood of pain, and restores 
to him that balance of his infant powers, which circumstancea 
had disturbed. 

The teacher of an infant school does not come to his em- 
ployment with an apparatus of regulations, proliibitions, and 
penalties, contrived beforehand, and happily calculated to ope- 



18 MR Russell's lecture. 

rate as a general prescription and itiXallible remedy for all moral 
disorders : he comes to watch the infant mind in its action 
and tendencies, to aid and befriend it ; he 'occasionally ven- 
tures to guide and direct it, but never thwarts it, and seldom 
checks it. His methods spring up at the moment ; they arise 
out of particular occurrences, and vary with every aspect of the 
mind. He cherishes infantile virtue by giving it free scope 
and generous encouragement, rather than by soliciting or ex- 
citing it by any particular expedient : vice he anticipates and 
prevents, by taking away the occasions of it. * 

The intellectual instruction attempted in infant schools, is 
not so successful, perhaps, as the moral management. It is 
sometimes carried much farther than the infant capacities ad- 
juitj and so becomes nominal and apparent, in some particulars, 
more than real or beneficial. 1 allude, here, to the inculca- 
tion of dogmatic tlieology, to lessons in the nomenclature ox 
geometry and astronomy, and to the exercise of chanting ta- 
bles in arithmetic. Much, I admit, is apparently done la 
this way : the memory is called into use, and the children are 
made to seem very intelligent. But the memory thus cultiva- 
ted is verbal merely ; and the knowledge is that of words rath- 
er than things. This is bui the exploded system of teaching 
by rote, revived and applied to science, instead of the columns 
of the spelling-book. There is no intellectual gain in such 
instruction ; or, rather, there is no instruction given in such 
cases. 

Leave the infant being to nature's tuition ; and what a con- 
trast is exhibited to the common, unmeaning, and mechanical 
process of elementary education ! As soon as the infant can 
walk, he manifests that he has learned to discriminate forms 
and colors, odors and sounds, without teaching. If left to 
himself, he walks about in the field, picking the most beauti- 

* The humorous and eccentric moralist, John Newton, has left a great 
legacy for teachers in that shrewd saying of his, ' Let me first fill the 
bushel with wheat, and then I defy any man to fill it with phafF.' 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 19 

ful and fragrant plants around him. He prefers one shape of 
a leaf to another : he selects the most brilliant blossoms. He 
stops to listen to the natural melody of the birds. He watches, 
with sympathetic delight, the varied form.s, and the free and 
graceful movements of the diflcrent animals he sees. In all 
these employments he is undergoing a discipline of attention, 
judgment, memory, imagination, and feehng, which the super- 
ficial observer may not trace, but which is not the less real, 
useful, and practical. 

Appropriate instruction for infancy would be such as should 
follow out and regulate these tendencies of nature, — not pre- 
clude them, by an arbitrary and formal routine, as is common- 
ly done, in what is called regular education. The infant 
school system is not, as yet, what it may be expected to become, 
after a few years more of experiment and observation shall 
have shed their light on this new department of instruction. 
It needs a still greater freedom from the shackles of previous 
custom. But it is deserving of all praise, in its tendency to af- 
ford a natural and generous scope to the young mind, — in its 
compliance with the obvious predilections of juvenile taste, in its 
liberal supply of those objects on which the affections of infan- 
cy and childhood naturally fasten, and by means of which they 
are invigorated and expanded. Pictures, and such playthings 
as are calculated to have a salutary effect on mind and body, 
are freely used in the infant schools. But it is much to be de- 
sired that the branches of knowledge, and the practical exer- 
cises, which are introduced in these and similar schools, should 
be such as even the infant mind could appreciate, — thai 7ia- 
tural hisior]/, in all those branches of it which are accessible 
to childhood, should be still more extensively introduced, and 
taught hy means of specimens or jiictures, and other repre- 
sentations. The capacities and propensities of the infant 
mind would, in this way, be ef|ually consulted ; and a vast 
deal of useful mental discipline on tlie forms and colors of objects 
might thus be imparted. The elements of number and com- 
bination might be drawn from the same source. Attention 
2* 



20 MR Russell's lecture. 

and discrimination would, by such means, be successfully cul- 
tivated ; memory would be usefully employed ; the affections 
would be interested and refined ; imagination would be exer- 
cised ; and the whole mind would receive an intellectual im- 
pulse, favorable to elevation and purity of character. 

Instruction in this department of science, however, would 
need to be divested of system and of nomenclature, and to be 
modified, in all respects, by the condition of childhood. The 
teacher's aim should be to elicit thought and reflection, rather 
than to furnish the appearance of scientific acquirements ; ear- 
ly cultivation being regarded by him merely as a preparative 
for intellectual habits, and not requiring, therefore, the terms 
and the apparatus which belong to later stages in the pursuit 
of knowledge. 

The rudiments of several useful accomplishments, may, no 
doubt, be successfully taught in early childhood. Among 
these would certainly be reading, writing, and arithmetic ; 
— but the last two as comparatively unimportant at the early 
stage of infancy, and the first, rather as a happy means of pro- 
moting general habits of intelligence and of pure morality, than 
as a thing urgent or indispensable. A child may be well in- 
formed, comparatively, may be accustomed to excellent moral 
habits, may have been, in fact, well taught, without being able, 
as yet, to write or read or spell ; and the success of a teacher 
who is'engaged in the instruction of young children, should 
never be measured by the letter of attainment, even in these 
practical branches, but by the extent to which he has impart- 
ed the power of attention, and by his endeavours to create an 
inquisitive and discriminating turn of mind, or a dehght in 
mental occupation. 

The true idea of an infant or elementary school would be 
most fully realised by ihat of an infant '■ lyceum,' (so to term 
it,) in which the main object is not to peruse any one volume, 
or exhaust any one science, but rather to select the instructive 
and the entertaining from all, to excite a general interest in 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 21 

the rudiments of knowledge, and to produce a relish for intel- 
lectual pursuits. 

There are but few books which could be mentioned, as suit- 
ed 10 the wants of the infant mind, or sucoe.isfully adapted 
to the business of elementary instruction. The current vol- 
umes of natural history are too extensive in their plan, or are 
so largely devoted to rare and foreign animals, as to be unsuit- 
able for very young children. A book of domestic animals, 
with correct and neat engravings, would be very useful in this 
department. Worc&ster^s Primer will be found serviceable to 
children old enough to use it. But a simpler book still would 
be better. Fowle's ChiWs ArUh7iietic is, on the whole, well 
adapted to its objects ; so also is Emerson^ s North American 
Arithmetic. A slate and slate pencil, put into the liands 
of children who are capable of using them, with permission to 
draw and print, are an excellent means of employment and of 
improvement. The ChilcPs Sotig- Book will be found useful 
in any attempt to teach simple tunes to little children , and a vol- 
ume of suitable drawings or engravings, selected as already men- 
tioned, would afford much useful instruction, as well as enter- 
tainment. Such, however, is the scantiness of supply in all 
these departments of pubhcation, that no book can be mention- 
ed with exclusive or unqualified approbation. The teacher 
must expect to find all such aids in need of modification and 
improvement. He must look to the minds of his httle charge 
themselves, to ascertain what he and they need ; and he 
must, after all, draw largely from his own resources for meth- 
ods and materials. 

The great means, indeed, of improving elementary educa- 
tion we must look for in the character and qualifications of 
teachers themselves. One prevalent and fatal error must first 
be corrected, — the impression that httle is required of an ele- 
mentary teacher, and that any person is competent to such an 
office. No mistake covild be more prejudicial to education 



22 MR Russell's lecture. 

than this. To leach an elementary school, with even a mod- 
erate degree of success, demands a depth and variety of intel- 
lectual and moral qualifications, which no other office in educa- 
tion, in any of its departments or stages, ever requires. Emi- 
nent nttainrncnts in a single branch of science or of literature, 
with a facility in imparting knowledge, are all that can be 
justly held indispensable to instructers in what are called the 
higher branches of education, or in the higher order of institu- 
tions. It is not so with the elementary teacher : he must pos- 
sess, in the first place, a degree of moral perfection which no 
otlier teacher has occasion to exercise ; he must understand 
the nature of the young mind on which it is his business to 
operate ; he must have an extensive knowledge of the physi- 
cal and moral, as well as the intellectual nature, of the human 
being ; he must possess an active imagination, an affectionate 
disposition, a mind judicious and ready in expedients ; — in a 
word, a truly intellectual character. Persons who do not pos- 
sess a good degree of all these qualities, are unfit for this em- 
ployment ; though they may become useful and respectable, 
and enjoy a solid happiness in pursuits less trying to the tex- 
ture of the soul. 

The female sex are especially adapted to the office of early 
instruction, by their native tenderness, their ready observation, 
their apparent adaptation to occupations demanding a minute 
and varied attention. But where shall we find that range of 
thought, that disciplined perfection of mind, that untiring corpo- 
real strength, which are all indispensable to the successful teach- 
ing of infancy '.^ To improve early education, we must afford 
more liberal advantages of instruction to the generahty of the 
female sex. They themselves must take more vigorous measures 
to secure and prosecute the best opportunities of intellectual 
advancement, — not those merely which can be commanded 
by resorting to a distinguished school, but those, rather, which 
alone are worthy of the name ; — extensive reading, thorough 
investigation, vigorous application of the individual mind to 
all that concerns the happiness of human beings. 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 23 

To the question, ' How far can the infant school system he 
advantageously adopted in primary schools ? ' a general an- 
swer only can be given. Methods and exercises which might 
be both appropriate and useful in one school, and under the 
management of one teacher, might not be so in other circum- 
stances ; as must obviously be the case in the different condition 
of schools in the city, and those in the country, — of those which 
can be liberally supplied with books and pictures, and other 
means of interesting and instructing the infant mind, and in 
those in which the supply of materials of this description is limit- 
ed. The main point to be desired, is, that the teacher should 
possess, in his own head and heart, the spirit of inf suit education, 
by which he will be enabled, in a great measure, to create the 
aids of which he stands in need, and to make up, by fertility in 
mental resource, what may be lacking in external means. 

To the teacher who possesses the proper qualifications for 
eiirly iristraction, materials will not be scarce or difficult to 
command ; a flower, a leaf, a grain of sand, even, if rightly 
presented to the attention of infancy, will afford ample materi- 
als for thought and conversation, and embrace more elements 
of useful knowledge and of mental pleasure, than ever can be 
derived froni the routine of common books and formal tuition. 
An exact prescribed course of operation is not desirable in the 
instruction of young children. Their nature craves variety 
and change ; and a judicious mode of education will regard, 
with as ready attention, the obvious appetites of the mind, as 
those of the body. 

The chief things to be done, for the improvement of prima- 
ry schools, or with a view to assimilate them to infant schools, 
may be briefly recapitulated under the following heads. 

1. The attendance of very young children should be en- 
couraged. 

2. A suitable play-ground or play-room should be provided 
for every school. 

3. Every exertion should be made to render the school- 



24 MR Russell's lecture. 

house or room, and the school furniture, conducive to health 
and comfort. 

4. The school exercises should be often varied, and the at- 
titude of the children frequently changed. 

5. Motion, at short intervals, should be a part of regular 
school exercise. 

6. The school shoidd be controlled by management rather 
than government. 

7. A mild, affectionate, and judicious treatment of individu- 
als, should be substituted for general laws and penalties. 

8. Conscience, judgment, affection, sympathy, and not fear, 
should be employed, on all occasions, as means of moral in- 
fluence. 

9. Pictures, conversation, and stories, and, if possible, plants 
and animals, should be the chief sources of instruction ; 
formal lessons being carefully avoided. 

10. Exercises or lessons of any description should be very 
short as well as perfectly simple. 

11. All lessons should be strictly adapted to the existing 
powers and capacities of infancy or childhood : nothing should 
be taught which is to be understood by and by. The true 
way of teaching a child is not to anticipate or to inculcate any- 
thing, but to exercise his faculties on objects to which they are 
at present equal ; leaving the r\isult to take place in its own 
good time. 

12. All learning by rote should be most carefully avoided. 

13. Whilst uniform succession of employments, and me- 
chanical routine, are strictly shunned, regard should always be 
had to the different states of mind and body in which school 
hours can be most advantageously spent. The first part of 
school time should be devoted to the direct influence of the 
teacher's mind on his pupils, by conversation or instruction ; 
the second portion, perhaps, to the action of the children's own 
minds, in telling again to their teacher the story he has read 
or told to them ; — in writing, (if old enough,) what they re- 
member of it, on their slates ; in reading, drawing, counting, 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 25 

or in any other form of mental activity. The tliird portion 
may be given up to play or recreation of any proper kind. 
The fourth to the contemplation of pictures, or to hearing or 
joining in simple strains of music, or hearing or saying appro- 
priate pieces of poetry. Bodily exercise should be connected 
with many, if not most, of these exercises ; and rest and sleep, 
if necessary, should be interspersed with action. But nmch 
of all such arrangements must be left to circumstances, or 
rather to the exercise of individual judgment in the teacher. 

14. Children old enough to be instructed in the conmion 
elements of school education, should be taught, as nearly as 
may be, in the manner adopted with the youngest class of 
pupils, — by rational, interesting, and practical methods. — Few 
or no books being exactly adapted to the instruction of children 
in reading, an expedient such as the following may be ad- 
vantageously adopted. Let the teacher be provided with a 
large black board or slate ; and when he can find a large, well 
drawn and well colored picture of an animal, or of any other 
object inteUigible and interesting to cliiklbood, let it be suspend- 
ed over the black board : let the children be asked a fevk^ simple 
questions about the forin, the color, and the habits of the an- 
imal, — if such is the object selected. The ideas elicited by 
these (]uestions, should be embodied, by the teacher, in a few 
short and easy sentences of familiar words, and printed, in 
large and distinct letters, (capitals, perhaps,) on the black board. 
Every sentence, (and tliere should be very few,) should then 
be slowly and distinctly read aloud by tlie teacher, and re- 
peated several times ; the children being permitted to join their 
voices with his. The next stage of the exercise is, that the 
teacher should select a few of the prominent words of the les- 
son, and place them in a column by themselves clearly and 
distinctly printed. These the children should compiue with 
those contained in the regular sentences, pronouncing them 
distinctly along with the teacher. Two or three of the letters 
which happen to occur oftenest in the words printed, should 
now be selected and placed by themselves, in large and dis- 



26 MR Russell's lecture. 

tinct form, and be compared with those which occur in the 
words of the lesson, and their names, or rather, their sounds, 
distinctly repeated by the teacher and the pupils. Those of 
the children who are of sufficient age and abihty, should now 
attempt to transcribe the whole or part of the lesson", on a 
large black board or slate, placed conveniently for them. The 
youngest should be furnished, each with a few sets of letters 
pasted on small blocks of wood, or with plates of tin with the 
letters of the alphabet stamped upon them. With these let- 
ters they may ' set up,' or compose, the lesson for themselves 
on the flat part of the surface of their desks, or on a common 
school slate. Reading and spelling may thus be taught simul- 
taneously, and in the form of active and pleasant employ- 
ment, while counting the letters and telling their forms may 
serve, if rightly managed, to impress on the mind some useful 
elementary ideas in arithmetic and geometry. These exer- 
cises should be continued, perhaps, during the whole of the 
time that children are employed in learning to read ; the na- 
ture of the exercise being adapted progressively to the capaci- 
ty of the learners, and embracing the elements of intellectual 
and moral discipline, by a proper attention to the subject of 
every lesson. 

Books, when suitable ones can be obtained, may be ulti- 
mately employed instead of the lesson on the teacher's board; 
and the pupils may now be accustomed to vary the language 
of the story by substituting their own forms of expression. A 
few of the words of every lesson may be selected to be defined 
and embodied in sentences, on the slate, by the children them- 
selves. Clear and distinct conceptions will thus be acquired, 
and the meaning and force of language receive their true and 
full value. Subsequently, the pupils may be permitted to 
write a letter or story, on their slates, and read it to their teach- 
er. By this means the false tones of voice usually acquired 
from the formality of school exercises, may be avoided, and a 
natural and appropriate elocution acquired ; the basis of it 
having been already secured in the distinct and correct enun- 



INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 27 

elation of words and letters, in the elementary lessons before 
mentioned. 

15. The elements of penmanship may be very convenient- 
ly taught, so far at least as regards the forms of letters, by the 
use of the Ijlack board and the slate. 

IG. Simple exercises in arithmetic may be prescribed in the 
same way. 

17. Fornial lessons in geometry and astronomy can only 
prove useless, or worse than useless, to very young children. 
But a few of the solids, corresponding to the shapes of com- 
mon objects, may be us!xl, to good advantage, as the basis of 
correct ideas of form. Thus far apparatus and other illustra- 
tions ma}^ prove highly useful. 

18. Teachers of elementary schools should, if possible, pre- 
pare themselves for teaching the rudiments of drawing and 
singing.* 

19 A great means of immediate improv^einent in the busi- 
ness of teaching, may be found in the opportunities allbrded by 
the instruction imparted at the meetings of Lyceums and teach- 
eis' associations; if these are aided, as they alwajs should be, 
by the use of an extensive and well-selected library, and are re- 
garded as merely the outer gates of knowledge, whose in- 
most treasures are never to be won but by the cflbrts of indi- 
vidual diligence and personal investigation. 

♦ Much assistance, in relation to vocal music, may be justly expected from a 
work now in press, compiled by Mr Lowell Mason, from materials collected by 
Mr William Woodbridge, during his residence in Germany and Switzerland. 



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